Impact of Recession on Promotional Pens and Printed Pens - In Terms of Overall Sales

Not only has the current recession impacted heavilythe overall spend was dramatically reduced.
on the advanced economies of the world we areThe impact that the recession has had on China
now seeing that emerging economies such as China,should not be underestimated. After ten years of
Vietnam, Brazil and Argentina are also suffering,perfecting the processes involved in the manufacture
primarily because their exports in general areof promotional pens, the Chinese now dominate the
significantly down on previous decades. Here we lookworld supply of promotional items in general and pens
briefly at how the recession has affected the salesin particular. Promotional Pen factories, the size of
of promotional pens and printed pens in both thesmall towns emerged in Shanghai and Ningbo
western world and China.throughout the early part of the twenty-first
Promotional pen manufacturing in both the U.S. andcentury, many with several thousand employees
Europe began to decline approximately in 1999involved in manual assembly. The amount of labour
because of lower manufacturing costs in China.required was so great that workers were shipped in
Changes were quite slow in the first five years asfrom other regions to meet western demand. A
Chinese pens, in terms of style, finish andlabour crisis was emerging in these two regions by
functionality were greatly inferior to westernlate 2007 and wages began to rise sharply. This was
standards. In the following five years there was aa golden period for that region of China and it
significant increase in exports from China and theseemed that it would never end. The banking and
reasons for this is covered in a separate article 'Whymoney supply problems that the west encountered
Promotional Pens are not made in the West Anyfrom early 2008 onwards, however, resulted in a
More'.sharp decline in demand for promotional pens and
Since the beginning of the recession that began inpromotional items in general and this had a
early 2008 overall sales of promotional gifts was incatastrophic effect on employment in the
steady decline as company's marketing andindustrialised regions of China. Workers that were
advertising budgets were slashed. Whereas overalloriginally shipped in from remote areas were sent
sales were down in some western countries by ashome with no prospect of returning. This had a
much as 60% some product lines were affecteddevastating effect on rural communities and
much more than others. Generally speaking, the morecontinues to be a great worry for the Chinese
expensive promotional items saw a greater reductionauthorities as they are ever conscious of civil unrest.
in overall volume than budget promotional items. TheMany large Chinese companies involved in the
reasons for this were twofold. Firstly, companies thatmanufacture of promotional items have now closed
traditionally used promotional pens or printed pens fordown with no prospect of reopening.
marketing and advertising were able to continue withWe are increasingly living in an interdependent world
their spend because the outlay was relatively low.and the current recession has certainly highlighted
Secondly, many companies that traditionally boughtthat fact. We have seen the economic effect the
expensive promotional products switched to cheaperrecession has had on global markets and many
ones such as pens to carry their advertising messagebelieve this is a temporary affair before we
and this strategy allowed them to keep their volumeinstinctively revert to unabated levels of consumerism
the same but as the unit cost was significantly lower,once again. Only time will tell!